


It Feels Like Rain

by springsdandelion (writergirlie)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 08:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirlie/pseuds/springsdandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta returns to District 12, but before he can see Katniss, he must first learn to deal with the reality of coming back to the place that no longer feels like home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Feels Like Rain

_When I cry, I close my eyes_

_And every tear falls down inside_

_And I pray with all my might_

_That I will find my heart in someone's arms_

_When I cry, cry_

_When I cry, when I am sad_

_I think of every awful thing I ever did_

_When I cry, there is no love_

_No, there is nothing that can comfort me enough_

_When I cry_

_Cry, cry_

_The salt inside my body ruins_

_Everyone I come close to_

_My hands are barely holding up my head_

_Oh, I'm so tired of looking at my feet_

_And all the secrets that I keep_

_My heart is barely hangin' by a thread_

_Hangin' by a thread_

_\-- “Hanging By a Thread” (Jann Arden)_

 

 

~ * ~

 

The lights were still on in Katniss’s house. Muted through the thin drapes in the downstairs windows, but visible from here. He looked for shadows, any sign of movement, but there was nothing except for the warm, amber glow of lamp light.

 

“I can take you over there right now,” Haymitch said. Peeta’s eyes watered at the faint stench of liquor and stale saliva. Haymitch had sworn he hadn’t drunk anything all day, but his clothes still bore that distinctive scent. Based on the relative coherence of his speech, Peeta was inclined to take him at his word. “She’s still awake.”

 

“Is she sleeping at all?”

 

The question left his mouth before he could think to filter it. He could feel Haymitch’s stare branding the back of his neck and he decided to pick that moment to fumble with the door.

  
“Doubt it. If she does, it’s probably at odd hours. When her brain can’t keep up anymore with the garbage it generates and needs to shut down for a while.”

 

_You should know, Haymitch._

 

Peeta pushed the door open. Darkness spilled out. The air smelled as though it had been trapped in here for a hundred years. It may as well have been that long.

 

“You haven’t told her, have you?” he said. “That I’ve come back?”

 

He didn’t turn his head, but could see Haymitch out of the corner of his eye. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that was pity on Haymitch’s face. Peeta was quite familiar with that expression now. God knew he’d seen it enough times on enough people.

 

“No, I figured that should come from you.”

 

“Don’t tell her. Ok, Haymitch?”

 

When the other man didn’t answer, he finally lifted his eyes, completely unprepared for the clear-eyed gaze that looked back at him.

 

“Whatever you want, boy.”

 

Haymitch gave an exhausted, resigned sigh. They both stood awkwardly on the porch, with Haymitch playing with the cuff of his jacket and Peeta still half looking in the direction of Katniss’s house. At last, the lights in the windows went out.

 

“Get some sleep.”

 

He clapped Peeta hard on the shoulder. Peeta couldn’t tell if he’d given him a squeeze or whether it had been nothing but an involuntary twitch, but before he could decide which it was, Haymitch had already withdrawn his hand and stepped onto the lawn.

 

“Hey,” he said, “thanks for the ride.”

 

Haymitch smirked. “Buy me a drink sometime. We’ll call it even.”

 

Peeta broke into a grin. He thought he caught a half-smile on Haymitch’s face too before the darkness swallowed him up. Then he turned to face his entry way, feeling the cold, still air of a house that hadn’t been occupied in a long time.

 

And he wondered if he would ever be able to call it home again.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

He awoke so violently from his nightmare that he leaned over the side of the bed and vomited all over the hardwood floor. At least his aim had been good enough to avoid the rug. That would have been hell to get clean.

 

He hadn’t had a bad dream in weeks. Dr. Aurelius had noted it as a “significant leap” in his recovery—big enough to earn him a ticket home. Now he’d been back less than five hours and he’d already had his first distorted flashback; he wondered whether this was just a hint of things to come.

 

It wasn’t as if he should be surprised, anyway. Besides the Capitol, no other place held so many deeply rooted memories, so many landmines that could trigger some misfiring synapsis in his brain. He’d briefly wondered, when Dr. Aurelius had first suggested returning to District 12 more than a week ago, whether he’d even want to come back to this place.

 

Where his family was all ash and bone.

 

Where the bakery was just a burnt-out shell of metal and melted plastic.

 

Where he had gotten reaped. Twice.

 

There was nothing and no one to come home to. Except for the one person he wasn’t even sure would want him back to begin with.

 

His eyes sought out the shape of the phone on his nightstand. In the darkness, it looked distorted, too, like a monster still left over from his dream. Her voice echoed in his mind, clear and pure and beautiful. This must have been what the sirens sounded like, before they swooped in for the kill.

 

He shook the thought out of his mind. It still rattled in his brain, colliding with the other images that didn’t make sense, but the breathing helped. Closing his eyes helped. He felt his pulse begin to slow, felt the adrenalin in his system slowly recede. When he opened his eyes again, the phone looked like a phone again, and he placed his hand on it, trying to decide whether he was up for an early morning session with Dr. Aurelius to get reassurance that sirens weren’t real. That voices couldn’t kill.

 

That Katniss singing the Valley song was not a memory to be afraid of.

 

That he had made the right decision to come back.

 

His throat strained. Adam’s apple fighting against the confines of his windpipe. He closed his hand around the phone and began to lift the receiver up, then at the last second, let it drop back down.

 

Maybe all he needed was some sleep.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Haymitch stopped by the next morning, knocking twice, then giving up when Peeta didn’t open the door. Peeta peered out of the window from his bedroom and watched him walk back to his house without bothering to stop by Katniss’s. He wondered whether anyone was checking on her. He wondered if maybe he should. But then he remembered Haymitch telling him that Plutarch had hired Greasy Sae to keep an eye out on her, and the instinct to run over there and see her quieted down.

 

It never really left him completely, though.

 

That afternoon, he decided to check the contents of his pantry. Maybe Greasy Sae had been in here too, since it was stocked with the basics: flour, salt, cornmeal, lard—even a few extras like vanilla and baking powder. There were eggs and butter and milk in the refrigerator, too. It was as though she knew he’d have the urge to bake something.

 

He made pancakes even though there wasn’t any syrup, watched the pat of butter melt into its pores and drizzled honey on top. When he stood again to clear the dishes, he flinched; his leg gave him a sharp jolt that immediately faded into a dull ache. He was about to reach down to touch his shin where it was bothering him especially, when he remembered.

 

He didn’t have a shin there anymore.

 

He sank back down onto the chair again, rubbing at the cold plastic of his prosthetic, where the phantom ache still throbbed. Outside, the clouds gathered across a charcoal sky, and suddenly, he understood. It was going to rain soon.

 

 

~ * ~

 

He hadn’t been to the forest since they were training for the Quarter Quell. Katniss had taken him here one afternoon, handed him the bow her father had once made for her, and had him shoot arrows at a knot in one of the trees. He’d been a surprisingly quick study, but it wasn’t so hard to aim at a target that wasn’t moving.

 

It must have been a part of the forest where Snow had neglected to hide his cameras. They didn’t show them any footage from it, preserving the few hours they’d spent here by themselves, though he’d somehow buried the memories until now. Maybe he’d known to keep them out of reach from the tracker jacker poison.

 

The earth was still damp from yesterday’s rain, smelling of that musty scent that always made his stomach queasy. He trudged through anyway, feet sinking into the mud, guiding the wheelbarrow through the uneven terrain of tree roots and rocks. Finally, his eye spotted bright yellow in the distance. An entire row of bushes dotted with yellow.

 

He wasn’t even sure whether they still grew here. He had a vague recollection of Katniss showing them to him once—to give him an idea of how to draw them in her plant book, maybe? It was such a sweet memory that he doubted it for a second, but he turned it over and over in his mind and wasn’t able to find anything shiny about it.

 

But he had been right. The primroses were still here.

 

He felt guilty uprooting them, as if it were some sort of violation. She would appreciate them, though. At least he hoped. They would remind them of _her_ , and then maybe, eventually, they would remind her of him.

 

And maybe someday, when she looked at him, she’d be able to see past all of the pain he’d caused her. Forgive him for keeping her from taking her life. For being selfish and wanting to keep her here. Alive. With him.

 

Rain had started again, turning the soil beneath into mud. It caked his fingernails, the knees of his pants. Soaked through his clothes and left him chilled.

 

Again, his phantom shin ached. Gnawed with the memory of pain. But when he’d gathered all of the bushes and loaded them into the wheelbarrow, he knew he’d be ready to face her again at last.


End file.
